Thread: Obama And Judicial Review

Originally Posted by Minnekahta

As I understand it, it revolves around the idea of the government creating a commerce where none existed and then forcing people to buy into it.

And you agree that health care isn't commerce and that forcing people to buy something privately is unconstitutional (even though, as you pointed out at one point, forcing people to buy something through tax code is perfectly acceptable)?

Originally Posted by AdamKadmon

And you agree that health care isn't commerce and that forcing people to buy something privately is unconstitutional (even though, as you pointed out at one point, forcing people to buy something through tax code is perfectly acceptable)?

I suggest you simply state your own position instead of figuring out ways to twist mine.

Originally Posted by jviehe

All laws are mandates. But SS is not a mandate to buy something. Its a tax which goes into a specific fund which pays for a specific benefit. Still unconstitutional but far differnt than requireing someone to buy a commericial item.

In 1798, with 20 signers of the constitution in congress, and Thomas Jefferson, as president of the Senate, congress passed a payroll tax that went into a fund and paid for health care and the construction of publicly run hospitals, and the people who had signed the constitution did not consider it unconstitutional, perhaps you have some insight that the actual people who put the constitution in place lacked?
Or (and I consider this more likely) you're opinion of what is constitutional is flawed...

Originally Posted by HonorsDaddy

Pretty easy to get out of paying them. Be a 1099 Contractor or a sole proprietor or anything else in which you are not on a payroll.

If you had ever been a 1099 contractor or a sole proprietor, you would be familiar with Self Employment taxes, which are double what payroll taxes are, since you are both the employee and the employer.

Originally Posted by Minnekahta

I suggest you simply state your own position instead of figuring out ways to twist mine.

I can't twist your position until I understand your position. You think the legislation is bad, but you haven't explained why, specifically, you think it's unconstitutional. It's not a trick question: Plenty of conservatives right here on this very forum have explained themselves quite lucidly.

As for me, I believe that the individual mandate is Constitutional, that Congress has wide latitude to regulate commerce, that health insurance coverage certainly qualifies as commerce, that choosing to go without health insurance is a choice with financial consequences for those of us who are insured, that there is no meaningful distinction between penalizing someone for not buying something directly (as is proscribed by the individual mandate) and forcing them to buy it through the tax code (i.e. Medicare). That's why I believe the individual mandate specifically, and the ACA more generally, should be upheld.

But we should all understand that this is less a legal argument than a political one. The individual mandate was a Republican idea, offered in 1993 as an alternative to "Hillarycare" and championed by other Republicans since then, including probable GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich... as well as current Republican Senators who supported right up until the time Obama decided to agree with them. So the opposition is clearly built on politics rather than principles. And unfortunately, the Supreme Court sometimes acts like a political, rather than legal, institution as it might very well in this case.

So there you go.

I'd ask you once again for your own views, but since that clearly annoys you, we can leave it at that.

Pardon me if this has been asked already.

As I understand it, the SCOTUS jurists are stuck on this point: if the government [under the Commerce Clause] can force private citizens to engage in commerce they would not otherwise, what [or where?] is the limit to the government's power under the Commerce Clause?

Originally Posted by goober

If you had ever been a 1099 contractor or a sole proprietor, you would be familiar with Self Employment taxes, which are double what payroll taxes are, since you are both the employee and the employer.

You have to run the math on that one.

Originally Posted by darth omar

Pardon me if this has been asked already.

As I understand it, the SCOTUS jurists are stuck on this point: if the government [under the Commerce Clause] can force private citizens to engage in commerce they would not otherwise, what [or where?] is the limit to the government's power under the Commerce Clause?

darth, your going to have to keep asking because you won't get an answer. The only thing they can come up with is, you have to have a drivers license, but if you don't drive you don't have to have one. Then they say you have to pay SS, but again you don't work you don't have to pay. They just don't get it.

But hey, keep asking, somebody may have a brilliant answer that the Supremes can use to pass Obamacare.

Originally Posted by goober

If you had ever been a 1099 contractor or a sole proprietor, you would be familiar with Self Employment taxes, which are double what payroll taxes are, since you are both the employee and the employer.

Goober still doesn't have a clue or is deliberately distorting the truth.

When you are a Sole proprietor or 1099 you declare the money as income. You do NOT pay payroll taxes on it, you do not pay SS you just pay taxes on the income.

This is after all the deductions like rent, electricity, gas, cost of goods, Sales Tax etc etc etc.

Originally Posted by AdamKadmon

I can't twist your position until I understand your position. You think the legislation is bad, but you haven't explained why, specifically, you think it's unconstitutional. It's not a trick question: Plenty of conservatives right here on this very forum have explained themselves quite lucidly.

As for me, I believe that the individual mandate is Constitutional, that Congress has wide latitude to regulate commerce, that health insurance coverage certainly qualifies as commerce, that choosing to go without health insurance is a choice with financial consequences for those of us who are insured, that there is no meaningful distinction between penalizing someone for not buying something directly (as is proscribed by the individual mandate) and forcing them to buy it through the tax code (i.e. Medicare). That's why I believe the individual mandate specifically, and the ACA more generally, should be upheld.

But we should all understand that this is less a legal argument than a political one. The individual mandate was a Republican idea, offered in 1993 as an alternative to "Hillarycare" and championed by other Republicans since then, including probable GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich... as well as current Republican Senators who supported right up until the time Obama decided to agree with them. So the opposition is clearly built on politics rather than principles. And unfortunately, the Supreme Court sometimes acts like a political, rather than legal, institution as it might very well in this case.

So there you go.

I'd ask you once again for your own views, but since that clearly annoys you, we can leave it at that.

Let me ask you, if you do not work, are you forced to buy Medicare insurance? If you do not work are you forced to pay into SS? If you do not drive are you forced to have a license?

As for who's idea it was makes no difference if it is not federally constitutional. That is the whole point, just because it was a Pub or a Dem's idea does not make it constitutional.

Originally Posted by AdamKadmon

I can't twist your position until I understand your position. You think the legislation is bad, but you haven't explained why, specifically, you think it's unconstitutional. It's not a trick question: Plenty of conservatives right here on this very forum have explained themselves quite lucidly.

Actually, I stated quite clearly that the question revolves around the government creating commerce where there is none and then forcing people to engage in it. Which of course, you ignored. Thus, my annoyance. I might add, that should they accept this premise as constitutional, there is then no limit on what or how much commerce the government can then force you to engage in.

As for me, I believe that the individual mandate is Constitutional, that Congress has wide latitude to regulate commerce, that health insurance coverage certainly qualifies as commerce, that choosing to go without health insurance is a choice with financial consequences for those of us who are insured, that there is no meaningful distinction between penalizing someone for not buying something directly (as is proscribed by the individual mandate) and forcing them to buy it through the tax code (i.e. Medicare). That's why I believe the individual mandate specifically, and the ACA more generally, should be upheld.

That is a far too broad and unlimited interpretation of how far the government will be allowed to go on creating and regulating commerce. It'll never fly.

But we should all understand that this is less a legal argument than a political one. The individual mandate was a Republican idea, offered in 1993 as an alternative to "Hillarycare" and championed by other Republicans since then, including probable GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich... as well as current Republican Senators who supported right up until the time Obama decided to agree with them. So the opposition is clearly built on politics rather than principles. And unfortunately, the Supreme Court sometimes acts like a political, rather than legal, institution as it might very well in this case.

You are making the presumption that in 1993 there would have been no constitutional challenge. That may be a stretch, but I'm too lazy to research it and I do not dwell on the past. If the politics is that important to you, instead of criticizing Republicans for coming to their senses, maybe you should be criticizing Democrats for passing on the best deal they could have gotten back in 1993 without even debating it. Or you could snivel about how the evil GOP can't hand a victory to the black socialist muslim pretend President in an election year. Or maybe you will come to your own senses and re-evaluate the absurdity of Obamacare itself, with its 2700 pages of undecipherable gobbledegook, absurd and dubious funding mechanism, it's shear divisiveness, and its unsustainable economics. We should all celebrate when it gets struck down and get behind a bipartisan plan that simply addresses the problem of the uninsured instead of trying to remake the US economy in the image of the Europeans.

Originally Posted by jviehe

All laws are mandates. But SS is not a mandate to buy something. Its a tax which goes into a specific fund which pays for a specific benefit. Still unconstitutional but far differnt than requireing someone to buy a commericial item.

I agree that it sholud have been unconstitutional, but current jurisprudence gives Congress unlimited tax and spend power and it's a precedent that can't be overturned.

Originally Posted by goober

In 1798, with 20 signers of the constitution in congress, and Thomas Jefferson, as president of the Senate, congress passed a payroll tax that went into a fund and paid for health care and the construction of publicly run hospitals, and the people who had signed the constitution did not consider it unconstitutional, perhaps you have some insight that the actual people who put the constitution in place lacked?
Or (and I consider this more likely) you're opinion of what is constitutional is flawed...

I don't think the courts ever ruled against Congress' spending power, but Presidents all the way up to Grover Cleveland vetoed bills based on their belief that the Constitution did not authorize such spending. Individual Congressmen also voted against such bills.

It's not that the courts believe Congress actually has an unlimited spending power, it's that the courts have decided that its limits lie totally at Congress' discretion. And of course the President's.

The Supreme Court's long held view that laws passed by Congress have a presumption of constitutionality is based on the currently erroneus belief that Congress concerns itself with whether what they pass is constitutional. When judicial review first started, Congress and the executive branch policed themselves. Starting with FDR, that was pretty much abandoned, and thus I also think the Supreme Court should stop granting deference to Congress and be more aggressive in striking down laws.